1. Asia

Abstract

On comparison of the prewar, wartime, and postwar periods, two Japanese psychiatrists, ASAI and HASUZAWA, independently observed significant chan ges in the content of delusions of their schizophrenic patients. The changing contents reflected social events and changes. According to DE Vos suicide in Japan is closely bound up with cultural attitudes towards the family; it is likely to occur in those who hold the cultural beliefs most strongly. By contrast, delinquency appears to have few specifically Japanese features, and to arise mainly in those who have least internalized their cultural tradition. The rele vance of family interdependency, a typical feature of Japanese social organiza tion, to the frequency of and motivation for suicide is also emphasized in the studies by SAKAMOTO and KASAHARA and in studies of double or family suicides by OHARA. SHIKANO and OKONOGI attribute the readier acceptance of the psychoanalytic approach to the treatment of the mentally ill in the postwar period to a change in Japan's socio-political structure and the concurrent change in cultural values. CERNY reports on the treatment of the mentally ill in the People's Republic of China; apart from methods also used in the West, traditional procedures are employed by shamans and also within the framework of scientific medicine. Nineteen patients suffering from Koro came under YAP'S observation. He describes their characteristics and attributes this syn drome to a localized depersonalization of the penis.